Tuesday, March 06, 2007

I just need to admit I want sugar in my tea

Harold Bloom has apparently read every significant book, in the whole world. Now it's just re-reading for him I guess. While we may tsk at his snobbery, he at least will avoid mistakes like Natural Selection. This clunker involves a newly evolved ray ( The Demonray!) that is super smart, and can FLY. That's right, this amphibious manta ray comes out the ocean to hunt arrogant humanity along the coast of California. I was hoping for giant ray vs. Apache helicopter scenes among the B of A and TransAmerica towers, but no suck luck. Instead the demonrays hunt paper thin characters out at sea and in the woods. Or something. I'm not sure because I just read the first forty or so pages and then flipped through looking for anything interesting. No luck.

You might ask yourself, why put yourself through it? Why read these when you have so many good books at hand? Well, as the song goes, you never can tell. The Sea, was awarded one of the highest of literary prizes and I didn't like that. Also, the well-written monster book, as epitomized by Jurassic Park and Relic, is some of the purest escapist fun imaginable. And there is great pleasure in the hunt. I will fully admit I love bringing a new treasure to my friends. Unfortunately I find far more pyrite than gold.

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